W&F Issue 1 2018

www.wealthandfinance-news.com 22 Wealth & Finance International - Issue 1 2018 Alta Semper was established in 2015 by Ronald Lauder (Chairman of Clinique LLC), Richard Parsons (former CEO of Time Warner Group) and Afsane Jetha, Managing Partner and CEO. The firm invest across two industry verticals: locally- produced and value-priced consumer goods, the and high quality, yet affordable healthcare solutions. Afsane starts off by outlining the firm’s overall mission, its aims and just some of the solutions that the company can offer. “Throughout the company, our mission is to capture the tremendous growth opportunity of Africa, and over time other growth markets, while also promoting positive social, environmental and governance change at our portfolio companies. We aim to provide our investors, who constitute a broad range of institutional and HNW individuals, risk-adjusted exposure to the markets in which we invest, through specific strategies related to structuring our transaction, vertically integrating into the supply chain where appropriate as well as investing across complementary and interconnected regions.” Currently, the financial industry is very difficult to predict and Afsane provides us with her views of the market at present, explaining which factors and external influences make it difficult to predict. She talks about which particular areas Alta Semper are particularly interested in. “It is in our fabric to take a generational approach to investing, due to our African heritage and shareholder base. We believe that investing across African growth markets requires patient capital to alleviate pressure to realise value in times of currency instability and geopolitical unrest. As such, we tend to like to invest in companies where there may be a need for a longer-term investment period than the traditional private equity fund. These include buy-and-build platforms in the retail and medical facilities sectors, businesses with regional aspirations, consumer and healthcare platforms with the desire to vertically integrate into the supply chain or distribution channel, early- stage growth equity, and, of particular interest to Alta Semper are family family-owned businesses where institutionalisation is needed.” Alta Semper invests patient, flexible and strategic capital across growth markets with a specific focus on Africa. We invited Afsane Jetha to tell us more about the firm as we examine the secrets behind its success. Bold. Flexible. Patient. Investing in Africa. 1801WF16 Ensuring that Alta Semper is able to stay ahead of emerging developments within the industry, Afsane describes what techniques the firm employs in order to stay ahead of these advances. “In this ever evolving industry, we aim to meet the growing needs of a burgeoning youthful population and an expanding middle-class by investing in locally-produced and value-priced consumer goods such as food, beverage, supermarkets, personal care products and retailers. We do not believe Africa is an asset class; Africa is comprised of 54 sovereign countries, each with a unique history, stage of development and competitive advantages. Our shareholder-base and advisory board provide direct access into the decision-makers at several large strategic corporates and allow us to engage with these as joint-venture partners. “Furthermore, our strong and diverse local and global network allows us to draw on a diverse set of strategic, industry-specific and financial resources. We believe this makes a significant difference to our investors’ business and wealth.” Holding a wealth of experience and knowledge within a variety of sectors, the areas that the company work in tend to overlap, with Afsane leadings us towards the firm’s focus in a geographical sense. She is quick to praise the experience and skill of the team, meaning Alta Semper enters each transaction confident of it being a success. “Operating in a variety of sectors, we see value in deep-sector knowledge, and strong empirical evidence that sector specialists outperform. Our chosen sectors share many characteristics; the Consumer and Healthcare sectors often overlap in growth markets, where there is a lack of health insurance or state-funded access to healthcare. Many of our geographies of focus are plagued by a lack of or illiquid capital markets, undercapitalised banks, a dearth of home-grown management talent within nascent industries as well as volatile currencies. As such, we believe it is important to understand the spectrum of capital structuring options available to bring the right type of capital to the companies in which we invest. This capital could be structured as equity or an equity-like structured product, depending on our perception of the optimal risk-return trade-off for the opportunity at hand. Our team is highly experienced in equity, mezzanine and convertible structuring, and brings these skills to bear in each transaction.” In her concluding comments, Afsane signs off by predicting what the future holds for Alta Semper, commenting on how the firm has grown since its inception and what plans it has going forward. “Ultimately, we have been busy since inception and closed our first acquisition, a controlling stake in Egypt’s largest cosmeceutical company earlier this year. We have several other transactions that we are looking to close in early 2018, such as a growth capital investment in a leading speciality North African health-care retailer as well as a large pharmacy platform in West Africa. Our aim is to deploy more than US$300m into African growth markets over the next 24 months.” “...the financial industry is very difficult to predict and Afsane provides us with her views of the market at present, explaining which factors and external influences make it difficult to predict.”